PREMIERE:
ROYAL NATIONAL THEATRE
The Lyttleton Theatre
13 April 1993

CAST
Thomasina Coverly.................Emma Fielding
Septimus Hodge....................Rufus Sewell
Jellaby..................................Alan Mitchell
Ezra Chater...........................Derek Hutchinson
Richard Noakes.....................Sidney Livingston
Lady Croom..........................Harriet Walter
Captain Edward Brice R.N......Graham Sinclair
Hannah Jarvis........................Felicity Kendal
Chole Coverly........................Harriet Harrison
Bernard Nightingale...............Bill Nighy
Gus Coverly......................... Timothy Matthews
Valentine Coverly..................Samuel West
Augustus Coverly..................Timothy Matthews

Director................................Trevor Nunn

July 19, 1993 TIME -

Cerebral pleasures yield to emotional pain in a wry blend of Byron, biographers, physics and gardens..
Nunn evokes exquisite performances, notably from Felicity Kendal, as one of the 20th century
scholars, and from Emma Fielding and Rufus Sewell as the brilliant girl and her initially charmed,
ultimately doomed tutor.

"She is the epitome of all that society admires in her sex, and yet her chief renown
is for a readiness that keeps her in a state of tropical HUMIDITY as would grow ORCHIDS
IN HER DRAWERS in January!"
Septimus Hodge

Thomasina: (age thirteen) Septimus, what is carnal embrace?
Septimus : Carnal embrace is the practice of throwing one's arms around a side of beef.